Chapter 9: What is Digital Art?

Autentica
4 min readFeb 18, 2022
Photo credits: webneel.com

Every day the world is moving further away from reality and deeper into the digital. Especially with the most recent developments — NFTs and The metaverse, digital products, and spaces that are made possible by and for digital artists.

Over the years, digital artists have explored and showcased their creativity through NFTs, filmmaking, mainstream media, and other digital spaces dedicated to art technology.

Definition of Digital art

Digital art is defined as the product that emerges when art and technology contribute to its creation. This could be:

  • Paintings
  • Drawings
  • Sculptures
  • Photography
  • Animations
  • Music/sound
  • Video games
  • Television commercials etc.

A work piece can be considered art whether it is created from scratch using digital software instruments, or it can be an existing concept to which digital alterations have been brought.

The Origin of Digital Art

Photo credits: database.az

It is a misconception that digital art is a new development. It can be traced as far back as the 1960's when some artists and museums started exploring new ways of creating art by using the computer.

Initially, this invention was faced with a significant amount of resistance, but it soon became a great influence, transforming the art industry forever.

During this time, the evolution was known as computer art or multimedia art. It wasn’t until the 1980’s that the term ‘digital art’ was first used when a team of computer engineers invented a painting program called Aaron.

This artificial intelligence brought about the first digital artist, Haron Cohen who made large drawings on sheets of paper placed on the floor. Ever since computer engineers and digital artists continued to fine-tune the invention to make it more sophisticated.

In 1990, this new media became more advanced than it previously was. With these new improvements, digital artists were better able to explore their creativity via digital instruments. They were able to manipulate images and videos into completely new pieces of art.

Ever since art technology has continued to evolve. Recent happenings in the digital art industry attest to this. Digital art is now more interactive allowing an important amount of control to their audience and communities.

There is no doubt that digital art has revolutionized the media, film, and art industries. Digital artists can easily manipulate images to create masterpieces in the aforementioned industries and more recently, NFTs have keyed into the benefits of digital art and artists.

Digital Art Tools

Here’s a list of tools that a digital artist must always possess in his or her magic toolbox:

  • Skill
  • Hard work
  • Drawing tablet
  • Software for drawing (Adobe Illustrator)
  • A laptop or computer for running art software is needed for your digital piece.

What is the difference between digital art and conventional art?

What makes digital art different from conventional art is simply technology. While traditional art might involve brushes and paints, digital art involves the use of technology to design or create artworks. It is somewhat similar to graphic design but it involves much more.

In comparison with the conventional art, digital art is much more convenient to use, easy to save, and deliver to clients. With digital art, you can easily sell and deliver your artwork to anyone in the world without you or your artwork being physically constrained.

Is Digital Art easier than Conventional art?

Well, this is relative. Digital art is not something you can just jump in and start doing without any prior skill. Therefore, for you to strive in it, a lot of technical skill and hard work is required just like in conventional art. However, digital art helps to enhance the process and spread the result.

The importance of Digital Art

Aside from enhancing creativity.

Digital Art also helps to preserve the works of artists from being lost either to time, natural disasters, or wars. In addition, NFTs have also helped digital artists protect the ownership of their works through blockchain technology and assist them to better earn from their art.

Conclusion

Digital Art is a necessary and beautiful addition to the digital world. It has existed for a long time and will continue to exist in different forms. This is because the possibilities it offers are endless and there is still a lot the virtual world has to offer in terms of digital art, and more recently, NFT projects have further reinforced that potential.

Don’t you think?

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Autentica

We empower artists by giving them easy access to a technology that will bring them global exposure and create new revenue streams. Check us out at autentica.io